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Maye has statistically been one of the league's top passers this season, helping the Patriots get out to a 7-2 start. Drake Maye’s putting up a season strong enough to earn MVP consideration. In fact, some believe the Patriots quarterback is the MVP frontrunner through the first half of the 2025 NFL season. Of course, that depends on who you ask. Executives of teams throughout the league aren’t as bullish on the idea of Maye being the NFL’s first-half MVP. Maye received just one MVP vote from the 42 executives surveyed by Monday Morning Quarterback’s Albert Breer. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford garnered the most votes with 13, while six other quarterbacks (Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones) received more votes than Maye. In the same poll, Maye received the third-most votes for Offensive Player of the Year (three). He trails Colts running back Jonathan Taylor (27.5) and Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (nine). While execs don’t feel as strongly about Maye’s MVP chances, a handful of media members do. Yahoo! Sports’ Nate Tice was among them, believing he’s done the most of any quarterback to elevate his team this season. “I try to weigh what quarterbacks are doing in each of their circumstances,” Tice wrote. “Sometimes the numbers match perfectly with what I’m seeing when I review NFL games, but sometimes they do not, for any number of reasons. In the case of Maye and the Patriots, it’s pretty cut and dry the impact he’s making.” As the Patriots out to a surprising 7-2 start, Maye has statistically been one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks this season. He’s fifth in passing yards (2,285), tied for fourth in passing touchdowns (17), first in completion percentage (74.1), third in yards per attempt (9.0), and second in passer rating (116.9). But Tice pointed to advanced metrics like dropback success rate and expected points added on dropbacks, where Maye ranks first, for why he put the Patriots quarterback at No. 1 in his MVP ballot. “Box score stats also paint a favorable picture of what Maye is doing, and the eye test and film review of Maye show he’s knocking on the door with the dreaded E-word written across it (ELITE). Maye has been simply excellent this year,” Mays added. Elsewhere, a pair of ESPN analysts have also said Maye is the MVP. Former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky recently said he’d have Maye as his MVP, mentioning how he’s been one of the league’s top passers despite a relatively weaker wide receiver group. “Drake Maye’s playing quarterback just about as good as anybody, with the least amount of help around him when it comes to just talent,” Orlovsky said. “That’s not a knock on those guys, just keeping it real.” Will Compton, meanwhile, pointed to the rare air Maye’s put himself into this season for why he thinks the Patriots quarterback is the MVP. He mentioned the stat of Maye becoming the fourth quarterback in NFL history to record 200-plus passing yards and a 100 passer rating in eight consecutive games within a season. “The other quarterbacks who’ve hit this milestone all won the MVP in those seasons: Aaron Rodgers in 2011 and 2020, Tom Brady in 2007, and Peyton Manning in 2004,” Compton said on ESPN’s “Get Up.” Maye’s also gotten some hometown loving for MVP. On top of Patriots fans chanting MVP for Maye over their two-game homestand, former Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman also endorsed Maye for MVP on “FOX NFL Kickoff” on Sunday. Wide receiver DeMario Douglas emphatically said his teammate should win the award during an appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Friday. “Yes! Yes,” Douglas said. “Definitely, that’s my QB. It’s my job to help him get that. I’d be excited if he was a Year 2 MVP.” Still, not everyone in the media is quite sold on Maye being the MVP yet. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell didn’t include the Patriots quarterback in his top three for the award in his midseason awards column on Thursday. “The only downsides? Maye has played a relatively light schedule of opposing defenses, as the average team he has faced this season ranks 19th in QBR against,” Barnwell wrote, placing Maye fifth with Mahomes getting the top spot on his ballot. “And like [Eagles quarterback Jalen] Hurts, while Maye has thrown only four interceptions, he has also taken sacks at an 11.8% clip, the second-worst rate in the league. Some of those sacks can be a product of an offensive line that’s more competent than overwhelming up front, but many of them are on the QB.” Pro Football Focus, meanwhile, picked Darnold as its MVP for the first half of the season. It also has Stafford ahead of Maye for the quarterback spot on its All-Pro teams. In terms of the betting odds, Maye holds the third-best odds to win MVP at most sportsbooks. He sits at +400 at DraftKings Sportsbook, only trailing Allen (+170) and Mahomes (+350). For those curious, Allen won MVP last year after holding the second-best odds (+300) to Lamar Jackson (+290) at the season’s midway point. A year prior, Jackson held the third-best odds (+425) at the season’s midway point before winning MVP in 2023.
